My new tun.

I'm, exclusively, a no sparge and batch sparge  brewer, so my setup has always been pretty simple.

The new setup starts with a 50 quart MaxCold cooler Rox picked up for me.

I'm using the same spigot I use for the 5 gallon tun.  I just popped out the drain fitting that came with the cooler.  This uses the same baby  bottle washers discussed in the kettle mod post.

I'm using the standard plumbing supply stainless braid fitting I made...I think every homebrewer in the world uses this trick.  That's a stainless hose clamp holding it to the brass fitting.

Here's the inside with everything hooked up...like I said, pretty simple.

Works great!  In a 40 degree garage I lost 1 degree in a 60 minute mash. 

Kettle Mod - hopblocker

I had a great 8g pot, but no valve and found siphoning with the plate chiller awkward (and that's the nice way of phrasing it...in use, siphoning to the chiller involved obscenities...)

I bought a hopblocker from the finest, most friendly homebrew shop in Indiana, Kennywood, in Crown Point, and contacted the folks at Bargain Fittings to fab the fittings for the pot.

I didn't really know what I needed, but they took great care of me via an email exchange and fabbed an all stainless ball valve and related fittings to modify the pot for the hopblocker.

I used a step bit and really didn't have any trouble at all drilling the pot...kept it cool with a soaking wet paper towel.

Figuring that baby bottle nipples must be food safe and have to stand up to, at least, boiling temperatures, I cut the nipple part off, kept the "flat" part that goes into the bottle and had three food safe, high temp gaskets for less than a buck.

Works perfectly

to clean wort stained pots easily

from Rox when she saw me furiously scrubbing the bottom of my stainless pot...

a couple inches of water in the pot
a half dozen tablespoons of baking soda

boil for 20 minutes and rinse

sparkling clean, no elbow grease required.